GT Nuclear reactor automation?

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namae

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
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I'm on Unleashed with GT, and since nuclear fuel is rarely scarce I've set up a few mixed reactors. However when it came to automation I cant think of a good and easy setup.
So if I have a reactor with only uranium cells, no problem, hook it up to ME network and it is done if all slots are filled, but when it comes to mixed reactor with thorium and plutonium theres no way to tell ME to insert only those cells which are missing without making another network for reactor which would check whatever is in, obviously this gets things very cramped too soon.
I've tried supplier logistic pipes, BUT while they work fine with sustaining uranium, thorium and plutonium are treated differently, because their label states time left and after single tick they are not recognized.
Same goes with clay golems, although they don't even recognize uranium cells keeping items always with same durability. Plus I can't specify amount of cells to keep in, because I can't put more than 1 nuclear cell into golem.
I do not want to use routers because my reactors are few but use 8 pieces of fuel, so it is 8 routers for 1 reactor setup.
Finely there are advanced regulators which would do it somewhat reliable, but they have only 9 slots. Why is that a problem you may ask? Because going back to resupplying them I can't specifically input needed 8 pieces and my ME won't check what items need to resupply. What adds injury to insult is that logistic pipes can't insert items into advanced regulators.
I thought I could probably use turtles but I have zero programming experience and as far as I seen they can only check their own inventory.

So... any ideas?
 

netmc

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Jul 29, 2019
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One simple way would be to export the items into a ME interface, then have a golem keep your regulator filled with specific levels.
 

namae

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
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One simple way would be to export the items into a ME interface, then have a golem keep your regulator filled with specific levels.
That would be simple way if again I could put more than 1 cell into golem's inventory slot. Otherwise golems will either keep only 1 piece of cell or as much as he can input.
 

BIBLO

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
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i use routers. Have a router for each slot. Give each a machine filter upgrade. then use cheap iron chest to make each nuclear reactor touch. this way you only need 1 set of routers. i do the same thing with my alveary, i put them 1 block apart with a wooden chest between them. 1 router feeds frames to all 60 of my alveary. I have 3 routers on my apiaries that is feeding frames to a 100 of those. I love routers.
 

namae

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Jul 29, 2019
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Routers would be cool if I had lots of same reactors, but right now I would need at least 12 routers just for 2 different reactors and thats not even mentioning breeders. I will probably be forced to use them in the end, but right now I try to avoid it at all cost.
 

Omicron

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Jul 29, 2019
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In an 1.5 world I had five reactors set up in an U-shape. One breeder, two uranium reactors, one plutonium/thorium hybrid and one thorium sink. This required me to keep six different cell types in stock (single thorium, quad thorium, dual plutonium, dual uranium, quad uranium and depleted isotopes). In the middle of that U-shape, I had a chest cart drive eternal circles. It would accept cells from six Railcraft item loaders above the track (one for each cell type, which were supplied by my AE network), and unload cells into Railcraft item unloaders below the track. The unloaders in turn fed into advanced regulators, which finally inserted the cells in the specific reactor slots they needed to go in. The reactors were being emptied by the AE network and controlled by Buildcraft gates (red pipe wire signal on -> redstone singal on AND inventory full -> redstone signal on) via a master switch.

Why do it this way? Because Railcraft item unloaders actually have the exact feature that's needed in this case: they can keep a precise amount of specific items in an adjacent inventory. I couldn't use them directly on the reactors with complex cell layouts, because they don't allow you to specify target inventory slots; I had to use the regulators for that. However they do keep the regulator inventory from overflowing with the wrong kind of item.

Since the item unloaders only work when unloading from a cart, and carts can't be loaded by the AE system directly, that resulted in the relatively silly six-step chain of AE -> loader -> cart -> unloader -> regulator -> reactor. At first it looks as if you're having to jump through an excessive number of hoops to get there, but you have to keep in mind: that system is agnostic to the number of reactors. I had five reactors, but it would have worked just the same with one reactor... or one hundred reactors. All you need for another reactor is 4 extra pieces of track, an extra unloader and an extra regulator (and if you have a reactor where the cell layout is homogenous, you don't even need the regulator). You hook it into the loop, configure the loader to pull whatever cells necessary from the cart, and voila, you're done.
 

namae

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
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While I appreciate your help, this is certainly not an easy setup, and I don't want carts running around my reactors. In any case it would be easier to set up multiple AE networks or multiple regulators.
 

Runo

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Jul 29, 2019
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advanced regulators are your best bet, and to my knowledge, the only machine that can send multiple inputs to specific slots on a reactor. it just requires one regulator per fuel type, and since you rarely exceed 2 fuel types, it works out well. this makes it a functional solution for CRCS and breeder reactors as well.

You could try combining the advanced regulator with a filtered buffer too. It should do the trick but I've never used the machine before, its new to BC. There's a YouTube video about it but not much wiki documentation.
 

namae

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
109
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Jesus, it appears you can't input items into advanced regulators by about anything but golems (maybe other gt machines?) and then it gets glitched because of unique gt programming... I guess I should try poke around that filtered buffer a little more, but my knowledge with gates are rather obscure.